“The world finds out you’re ‘Chain Link,’ Deke, I’m no Lacey Town. But still, just saying…” I let that hang.

“Justice, you felt the draw of me in Wyoming that I felt from you when you walked into Bubba’s, you think I give a shit about the world knowin’ that, you’re wrong. When I say I don’t want anything to do with your fame I say it so you know what we got don’t got dick to do with that. That don’t mean I don’t get that you earned it and how you earned it. The things a man would be proud of his woman bein’ able to do, know I’m proud of those things in you. It’s just that a whole load of people know how good you are at doin’ ’em too. And that worries me because some of those folks can think they own a piece of you. But mostly, it’s just dead fuckin’ cool that’s a part of you.”

God.

He was always just…so…damned…Deke.

I dropped my head, it collided with his jaw but was cushioned by whiskers, and I muttered, “Fuck, you’re gonna make me cry again.”

“Before you get mushy,” he said in my ear, his tone changing, going low, “you protected against pregnancy?”

I closed my eyes. “Uh, not so much.”

His hand still tangled in my hair wrapped around the side of my neck. “Right. Shit happens, we’ll deal.”

Whoa.

That was surprising.

That was it?

We’d just deal?

I lifted my head and looked at him.

“You got a problem with the Pill?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Only taking hormones when I’m not having sex regularly.”

“Jussy, you’re gonna be having sex regularly.”

I pressed my lips together but still smiled through the press as I nodded.

Yeah.

We now officially were looking at a future together.

I guess we’d just deal.

He watched my mouth, his own lips quirking, but looked into my eyes when I quit pressing.

“You, um…protected against other things?” I asked.

“Didn’t find her, that didn’t mean I wasn’t looking,” he said strangely in answer. Then he went on to explain the strange. “She proved difficult to find. Still was lookin’ and not about to bang some woman ungloved and pass on shit I wouldn’t want her to have. This is good seein’ as one day she just upped and walked into Bubba’s.” His hand (with my hair) shifted so he could stroke my jaw with his knuckles. “And now she’s here and I got nothin’ but clean to give her. And babies, if she doesn’t get her ass on the Pill.”

Babies.

I dipped close and touched my nose to his.

“You’re doing it again, Deke.”

“Whatever, Jussy,” he muttered. “Get used to it.” He then rolled me so he was on top and asked, “You bring the condoms?”

“Two boxes enough?”

He grinned at me.

“We’ll make it work,” he said, his mouth coming toward mine.

“Cocky,” I muttered.

That was all I got out.

Deke kissed me.

The two boxes were definitely enough. Deke was a powerhouse in bed but he wasn’t supernatural.

Still, I made a mental note until I got a doctor’s appointment that we needed both locations stocked up so there were no worries.

Just happy.

Chapter Seventeen

In Deep

Justice

The next morning, I got sidetracked from getting dressed to make the bed. Thus I had on my bra, panties and jeans while smoothing covers when I heard Deke get out of the shower, a place that was so tiny, no way we could share (the only strike against Deke’s trailer). I even wondered how Deke could fit in there by himself.

He unusually didn’t come right into his bedroom area to get dressed, but I was on a bed-making mission so I didn’t look to see where he went.

I was busy fluffing and placing pillows when he came to me.

And when he did, he got right behind me, sliding a hand across my belly, slanting it up and pulling me to straight so I felt the heat of him, the hardness of him at my back before I felt something else.

Something cold with an edge that was scraping along the skin under the material of my bra between my breasts.

I looked down and saw the key Deke was positioning there.

I drew in a breath and forgot to let it go as tingles shivered at the skin there, over the tops of my breasts, up my shoulders, down my arms to sizzle all the way to my fingertips.

That was when I felt Deke’s lips at my neck.

“Anytime you wanna set up the Crock-Pot, gypsy, or anything you wanna do. My space is yours and you’re free to be here anytime you want.”

That key was the key to his trailer.

The home he set up by a lake because his mom couldn’t.

God, he was totally killing me. I knew it by the sting at my eyes.

Root myself in you

That was it. All I could think.

I wanted to root myself in Deke.

And it could not be expressed, even by the poet I fancied myself to be, how glorious it was that it seemed Deke wanted the same thing.

“Jussy?” he called when I said nothing.

“I’m gonna Crock-Pot the shit out of this winter.”

He moved away but not far, only far enough to turn me into his arms again, this time front to front.

And when I looked into his face, I saw and felt that he was silently chuckling.

The breath I breathe I only get when you’re laughing